Keats [Hardcover]

Whitbread Prize-winning biographer Andrew Motion (Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life) aims to broaden our understanding of John Keats (1795-1821) by paying close attention to the historical context in which he wrote and the political opinions he voiced. The poet was "of a sceptical and republican school", Motion argues, and Keats's work reflected his experiences "not just as a private individual, but socially and politically as well." This bracing reinterpretation stresses the vigour of Keats's character as well as his verse, burying for good the sentimental cliché of a sickly dreamer concerned only with art for art's sake.

The outline of the story of John Keats's life is well known: the archetypal life of the Romantic genius, critically spurned and dying young. This biography aims to enrich the facts with an understanding of how Keats fitted into the intellectual and political life of his time. It includes detailed examination of significant friendships with anti-establishment figures such as Hazlitt and Hunt, and the closeness of Keats's own spirit to the ferment all around, as expressed in his poems. The book also presents information about his schooldays and medical training.

'Keats' is the first major biography of the poet for some thirty years, and it differs from its predecessors in important respects. The outline of the story is well known - it has become, in fact, the stuff of legend: the archetypal life of the Romantic genius, critically spurned and dying young.
What Andrew Motion brings to bear on the subject is a deep understanding of how Keats fitted into the intellectual and political life of his time. Important friendships with such anti-establishment figures as Hazlitt and Hunt are given their full due, and the closeness of his own spirit, as expressed in his poems, to the ferment all around is made clear. Many significant new facts about Keats's schooldays and medical training, in particular, enrich the picture. Keats emerges as a more political figure than he is usually portrayed, but his personal sufferings, too, come into closer focus. Most importantly, Andrew Motion - himself a distinguished poet - demonstrates how the poems continue to exert their power. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Andrew Motion was Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009; he is Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway College, University of London, and co-founder of the online Poetry Archive. He has received numerous awards for his poetry, and has published four celebrated biographies. His group study The Lamberts won the Somerset Maugham Award and his authorised life of Philip Larkin won the Whitbread Prize for Biography. Andrew Motion's novella The Invention of Dr Cake (2003) was described as 'amazingly clever' by the Irish Times and praised for 'brilliant and almost hallucinatory vividness' by the Sunday Telegraph. His memoir, In the Blood (2006), was described as 'the most moving and exquisitely written account of childhood loss I have ever read' in the Independent on Sunday. His most recent collection of poems, The Cinder Path (2009), was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry. Andrew Motion was knighted for his services to poetry in 2009. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.